Strolling from class to class, lost in the everyday regiment of college life, students often ignore the problems facing folks outside the friendly confines of Harvard Yard.

Like AIDS.

But with the virus hitting the city of Cambridge and other Boston-area communities hard these days, helping people cope with the illness has become a matter of grave local concern, one that cannot be ignored by people in the area.

Even at Harvard.

Cambridge has about 2,000 HIV-positive residents. The number of women who are HIV-positive in Cambridge and Somerville has tripled in the past 10 years.

According to Cambridge Cares About AIDS Inc., a division of the city's AIDS Task Force, Cambridge has been among the top five Massachusetts cities in number of HIV cases since the disease was first reported.

Life for HIV-positive people in Cambridge and across America today entails a variety of obstacles, from the day-to-day strain of living with a usually fatal and often unpredictable disease to the trauma of discrimination in housing, employment and medical treatment.

For HIV-positive people, it is never easy to cope.

But an ever-growing support system in the Boston area is doing all it can to help sufferers in Cambridge.

One of the greatest concerns for Cambridge's HIV-positive population--especially those in the lower income brackets--is the search for housing.

"There's such a housing shortage [in Cambridge] that they're still setting limits," says Maureen Spofford, director of Cambridge Cares, a nonprofit organization that offers daycare services, educational outreach and case management to HIV-positive Cambridge and Somerville residents.

The group also offers temporary housing until a permanent home can be found.

Spofford says most cases involve individuals with mixed records--often former drug addicts and convicts--who find it difficult to obtain vouchers for public housing.

"A large number of our clients are homeless and in search of assistance," Spofford says. "They often don't have the references or the skills to find housing. They're on the bottom tier and we really have to work with the clients to get them back into the mainstream."

Kristins Hals, a project manager at AIDS Housing Corp. who spearheads several programs to handle housing issues for the HIV-positive, explains that each program services different needs within the HIV-positive community in Cambridge.

For example, the Open Door program targets singles, while the Home Connections program provides scattered confidential placement sites for families where the head of the household is HIV-positive.